Great article on Lessig's new "Creative Commons" project, which allows creative people to generate machine-readable "open content" licences for their works.
He points out, for example, that when Congress first enacted copyright law in 1790, the protection extended for a term of 14 years, which could be renewed for another 14 years if the author was still alive. Congress has since increased that term to the life of the author plus 70 years. Given current life expectancies, that means a corporation can now bank on preventing a piece of intellectual property produced by a 30-year-old today from falling into the public domain for more than a century.
Lessig says such practices run contrary to one of the main reasons copyright law was conceived in the first place. Originally, he says, copyright and patent laws sought to balance two competing interests: protecting and rewarding innovators for their work, but also making sure innovations were available for reuse or repurposing by others after a reasonable length of time.
(Thanks, Gwen!)
